Welcome to the new Manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well.
One of the things I think about a lot is what does it mean to be
human? Because as a manager, so much of
your job is about the relationships between the humans
that you work with. That comes into everything
around delegation, around collaboration, communication,
the way that we manage stakeholders in an organization,
the way that we deliver service to clients and external
stakeholder holders outside of the organization.
And so when we remember that underneath the job title and
underneath, you know, the education and all of the
experience at the heart of it, we are humans and we have
emotions and we have different ideas about how things should be
done. And we have different priorities
and we have different things that motivate us.
We have different things that we care about in any given moment
in our personal life, in our professional life.
I think when we remember the human part, it can make it
easier to then make decisions when you're navigating the
leadership part and the manager part and the gosh, we're facing
a new kind of challenge that we had an anticipated part or we're
facing a challenge that we had anticipated.
And you know how like there are still surprises that, you know,
we had not fully accounted for. Like whatever it's going to
happen in the course of your work experience that you'll
experience change, you'll experience opportunities that
feel scary. You'll experience a change that
you didn't want that feels scary.
All of it happens. And all of it also occurs
between people. The relationships that happen
between people are human relationships, which is why when
I'm creating this podcast for you, I'm really cognizant that
the the mess messaging and the tools I want to share with you
are very industry agnostic. It's interesting because I live
in San Francisco, so sometimes people assume that most of the
people I work with are in the tech industry and it is not
true. The thing that my clients and my
students tend to have most in common is never their industry,
but it's more of this perspective of wanting to do
well, not always knowing exactly how to do that, and very often
having to create for themselves. What is the vision of leader
that they want to be and how will they do that in their
specific context? Like if you care deeply and if
you consider yourself to be a kind person, then there will be
times when it can feel hard to know like what is the kind
response? How can I be kind and also
really hold my team responsible? Or how can I be kind and also
still practice accountability? How can I be compassionate with
people and also directive and clear about expectations or
about, you know, conveying information that might land in a
very disappointing way? All of this requires a level of
skill and nuance. And very often we don't even
realize what is required as you step into this leadership role
until you're actually there. And I don't think that's a bad
thing. I think that's just a normal
human thing. You know, kind of like you can
have all the ideas about what it will be like to have a kid, and
when you actually have that child, things might be very,
very different. Or you can understand something
intellectually, but the lived physical reality of it might hit
a little bit differently. So all of this to say that, you
know, when we come back to that human part, I find it can be
very grounding and very clarifying and help us to
organize all of the other thoughts that might feel
overwhelming. And so today for our episode, I
wanted to share with you a mindfulness practice that I
created years ago when I was teaching mindfulness to a group
of nuclear engineers, which is another kind of weird story, But
you know, sometimes you end up in really interesting
situations. And I was working with these
engineers and, you know, the way I found to teach this, that
really helped it make sense and bring it from something
intellectual to something that was more like, oh, I get this is
what I want to walk you through. And there are a couple of
reasons for that. One is we're moving into the end
of the year. And so that means that there's
probably also a lot of other personal stuff happening in your
life around holidays, maybe travel.
There might also just be challenges as the weather is
changing. I know for me in San Francisco,
it's starting to get darker now and I know that that affects my
mood. I have some clients that I work
with and they are very affected by the weather.
It's just harder to have energy and to, you know, like want to
do anything other than just stay home and be cozy.
And so when you are facing the end of the year and all of the
different changes that are happening professionally,
personally, in your inner environment, in your external
environment, this is a practice that I have found to be very
simple and very helpful for getting back to a centered,
grounded, calm place. Because then it becomes easier
to face whatever you need to face and to make decisions,
whatever those decisions need to be.
Have you noticed it's actually very difficult to make decisions
when we're anxious and moving really fast and, you know, not
sure what we're doing. So we would start second
guessing ourselves. But when we come to this place
where we can just take a breath, take a step back and just kind
of organize the thoughts so we don't feel so overwhelmed by
them, it helps. So here's how this works.
And if you can, if you are at home or if you are, you know, at
work, as long as you're not driving, maybe don't do this
while you're driving, but consider getting a small piece
of paper and a pen, something to write with.
And it can be small. It can be the back of an
envelope. It could be a post it note, it
could be an index card, piece of junk mail, whatever, some small
piece of paper that you have nearby.
And on that piece of paper, on one side, draw a heart.
It can be anywhere on that paper.
Draw a heart any size, and then flip it over and draw a star.
OK, great. And then flip it back over.
So now you're looking at the heart side of your paper and on
your heart side, I want you to think about maybe three things
that are not going your way, three things that are
challenging, three things that are difficult.
And they can be anything. They can be, you know, something
cut, you know, relatively trivial, like, you know, it's
getting cold and you don't like that.
Or it can be something really big, it could be something very
personal to you, or it can be something that you're just
noticing in the world or in your organization.
But three things on the heart side that are difficult, that
are challenging, that are not going your way.
Just write three things. And when you're done with that,
flip the paper over. And now you're looking at the
star side. And on the star side of your
paper, write down three things that are going well, three
things that are going your way. And they can be trivial or they
can be big, they can be personal, they could be global.
It can be something in your home, in your organization, in
the wider world. It's up to you.
But choose three things that are going well.
And then you put your pen down when you finished writing your 3
and you hold your paper in your hand, and you look at the star
side. And then you turn it over and
you look at the heart side. And as you hold this paper in
your hand, I want you to realize that in this moment and in every
moment of your life, there will always be things that are
challenging and there will always be things that are going
your way. There will always be both.
And this idea of mindfulness means that we are able to hold
the truth that both are happening.
We are able to look at the things that are hard and also we
can look at the things that are going well.
We're not collapsing into despair, and we're also not kind
of clinging and blindly looking at the things that are going
well and saying like, ah, no, no, like not looking at that,
right? Like we're able to hold both.
And it requires this measure of, in my estimation, it requires a
measure of willingness, like a kind of courage of heartfulness.
It requires a measure of tenderness.
Like this is the human experience that we will
encounter both throughout the course of our life.
And sometimes they are expected and sometimes they are
surprises. And the goal is not to exert
control over everything. The goal is to be present for
it. And when we do, it allows us to
unhook a little bit from the mind spiral that can get spun up
around how I wish things were different, how things used to be
and I wish they were the same. The way I'm afraid things might
go in the future, The way I hope things might go in the future.
It allows us to stop having conversations with the past and
trying to over exert exacting control over the future.
And just in this moment, can you arrive in this present moment
and be with something that you are noticing is true for you.
I think of mindfulness as a quality of attention.
And yes, it is useful to plan. And yes, it is useful to review
and debrief. And from time to time, we want
to let go of both of those to just arrive into this moment
with your attention right here. And we put the challenges on the
heart side. Because when you are a human
facing a challenge, that is when we want to bring some
compassion, some care and love and kindness to the part of you
that is feeling the struggle. And we put the things that are
going well on the star side because we want to remember that
there are always these bright points.
There is always a little glimmer, there's always
something we can look to that can help to illuminate the path.
And when we do this, it can help us to feel a little bit more of
that groundedness, that relief, that sense of OK, I don't need
to solve everything all in this moment.
Can I reorient, take things one moment at a time, just by
starting, by being present right here.
And what's really nice is that when you begin to practice this
for yourself, from time to time, simply pause and ask, OK, what's
on my heart side? What are the challenges?
Yes. OK.
And what's on my star side? What are those glimmers when we
start to do that for ourselves? You can also then bring that
same concept into conversation and relationship with other
humans in your life, both those in your personal life as well as
those in your professional life. And that might sound like in a
one-on-one or just saying, you know, hello to somebody.
How are you doing? What's good in your world today?
How are you doing? What's you know, what's been
hard? Has anything been heavy that you
know you want to just acknowledge?
The thing that makes this so magical is that when we're
looking at these, we're not trying to solve for anything.
We can do that later, but just for this moment, let me step
back, take a breath, gather my attention into this present
moment. It gives us that space to then
choose how do I want to respond in this moment?
And that, in my belief, is what makes us more effective managers
and more more useful leaders when we take that moment so that
we're not being completely reactive and overwhelmed.
But we are willing to slow down, take a breath just for a bit,
gather the attention right here, and then say, OK, what's
happening, what's next? What are my options?
If, by the way, you are feeling like you're currently leading
your team through something that's really hard, I encourage
you to go back to episode 172. That one published on June 3rd,
2024. And in that episode I talked at
length about leading A-Team through hard times.
So go back and listen to that if that will be helpful for you.
And if you want even more support, there are two options,
two ways to work with me. You can talk to me about
one-on-one Coaching and go to my website, kimnickel.com for that
and reach out. We'll schedule some time or sign
up for my upcoming course on communication strategies for
managers. We talk about different
communication strategies for different situations that you're
going to face in the course of your work life so that you feel
more equipped and a bit more confident about how you're going
to have those conversations, those communication moments with
people. The next class starts in January
2025. And again, you can find out
about that on my website, kimnickel.com or go into the
show notes and learn. You'll see the link to where
that registration page is with all the information.
Because we are coming into the end of the year, this can be a
great time to ask if your work will sponsor you, Meaning your
work might be willing to pay for you to take that class.
Especially if we're near the end of the year and they might say,
you know, we need need to spend this budget.
We have professional development dollars that we didn't use.
We can use them now or your manager might say, you know
what, I can use money from this for their budget and I can
absolutely direct those to reimburse you or to cover the
cost of you taking that class. This is such a great time of
year to make those asks. Also, if you're having
performance review conversations, this can be part
of you advocating for yourself and your professional
development. So let your work help you by
asking them for what you want. So that is what I wanted to
share with you today. I am thinking of you.
If you have topics that you want me to address in the future,
leave a comment in Spotify. You can leave comments on
podcast episodes, which is pretty cool.
And if you like this episode, if you like this podcast, if it has
helped you, please leave a rating or a review.
So that's what I've got for you today.
Thank you so much for listening. Have a great week and I will
talk to you next time. When you're more effective at
work, you're happier in your life, and when you're happier in
your life, you're more effective at work.
I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com
and sign up for a coaching consult.
It can get better.